British Airways has cancelled 130 short-haul flights to and from its main base, London Heathrow airport on Tuesday.
The Independent calculates 20 domestic flights have been grounded, from all eight UK regional airports BA serves, including two round-trips from Heathrow to each of Edinburgh and Newcastle.
In addition, 110 international flights to Europe are cancelled, including two round-trips from Heathrow to Larnaca in Cyprus as well as the Spanish islands of Ibiza and Mallorca.
BA says almost all of the flight cancellations are pre-planned and that passengers were given advance notice – with some departures taken out of the schedules many weeks ahead.
While airlines do not disclose passenger loads on the grounds of commercial sensitivity, if an average of 80 people were booked on each flight at the point of cancellation then more than 9,000 travellers will have been affected by today’s groundings.
British Airways departures from Heathrow
Domestic: 10 outbound, 20 sectors in total
- Aberdeen
- Belfast City
- Edinburgh (2)
- Glasgow
- Inverness
- Jersey
- Manchester
- Newcastle (2)
International: 55 outbound, 110 sectors in total
- Amsterdam (2)
- Athens
- Barcelona
- Barcelona (2)
- Basel
- Brindisi
- Brussels (2)
- Budapest
- Dublin (2)
- Dubrovnik
- Dusseldorf (2)
- Frankfurt
- Geneva (2)
- Gibraltar
- Hamburg
- Hanover
- Ibiza
- Istanbul
- Keflavik
- Larnaca (2)
- Lisbon (2)
- Lyon
- Madrid
- Malaga
- Milan Linate (2)
- Milan Malpensa
- Munich
- Naples
- Nuremberg
- Olbia
- Palma
- Paris CDG
- Pisa
- Porto
- Prague
- Rome (2)
- Stockholm (2)
- Toulouse
- Valencia
- Venice (2)
- Vienna
- Zurich (2)
British Airways has brought in aircraft and crew from its sister airline Iberia and Oneworld partner Finnair to try to stabilise its schedules over the summer.
Besides the cancellations by BA, the UK’s biggest budget airline, easyJet, has been cancelling dozens of flights daily – particularly to and from its largest base, London Gatwick. On Thursday, easyjet has cancelled 43 flights to and from the Sussex airport.
All passengers whose flights are cancelled are entitled to new flights on the original day of departure if a seat is available, even if it is on a rival airline.
If the cancellation was announced less than two weeks in advance and the airline is responsible, they are also due cash compensation.
